Dumbledore's Midnight Malfoy Meeting
by ZebJeb
Summary: Albus Dumbledore has a late-night conversation with Lucius Malfoy, and it is not pleasant for Lucius. ONE SHOT. Hints at Badass Dumbledore


Lucius Malfoy was sleeping very peacefully, with very pleasant dreams. As such, it is understandable that he was a bit annoyed by his sudden return to consciousness via an enervation spell. Initially assuming his wife, Narcissa, had woken him for some reason, he began to ask her what was so important. That was of course when he realized that he was completely paralyzed, propped in a sitting position at his desk (when he knew he had been in his bed previously), sitting directly across from Albus Dumbledore. Instantly, his irritation transformed to anger (not that it showed on his magically paralyzed face).

For nearly a full minute, Lucius seethed as Dumbledore sat calmly staring at him. As his anger started to ebb, he then noticed a mental probe in his mind. Shocked at such a blatant attack from Dumbledore, Lucius hastily threw up his Occlumency shields (though he was certainly no expert in the field).

With a soft sigh, Dumbledore began to speak.

"Good evening, Lucius. Before we begin, I wish to apologize for so rudely letting myself into your home. The only defense I can offer is that I did not believe that you would be receptive to the topic I wish to discuss with you, and I felt the importance of the meeting was greater than the breach of etiquette. As for your forced petrification, I am afraid I felt that you would be disruptive to the point of being counterproductive, so I took the liberty to ensure a productive conversation. A poor defense, I know, but it is the one I have."

"Oh, and to alleviate some of your concerns, I have taken the liberty of ensuring that your family and elves are sleeping peacefully throughout our conversation. Of course, all monitoring spells and wards have been modified so there is no record of my having been here. And I do want to congratulate you on your wards here, they took nearly a full two minutes to find and exploit their weaknesses so that I could completely bypass all your protections. Most ward schemes take me barely half a minute to bypass. As such, you have my compliments."

"With that out of the way, I presume you would like me to get to the point. I know that I have often been accused of speaking at great length to say nothing, and so I am making a concerted effort to avoid that for a conversation this important. To that end, I have come to discuss a recent discovery and revelation I have had."

"As you are aware, yesterday was Halloween and the one-year anniversary of the so-called death of your master, Voldemort, and the day young Harry Potter was orphaned. More importantly to me, today was the day I knowingly violated the wishes of young Harry's parents and placed him with Lily's sister Petunia. I did not take that action lightly, nor would I have taken the action if I wasn't sure you and your compatriots would seek to kill young Harry in revenge for your master's defeat. It was an unpleasant decision, but when the safety of an innocent child conflicts with the wishes of the parents, the only sane chose is to choose the safety of the child and ignore the wishes. Sadly, this was one of those cases."

"Still, as sure as I was of it being the right choice, I had concerns. You see, Petunia, that's Lily's sister, had a rather contentious relationship with Lily and a deeply antagonistic approach to all things involving magic. When I left Harry with Petunia, I was afraid that he would not be treated as a favored child. Still, he was just a 15-month-old child, and I could not really imagine a young mother not having room in her heart to learn to love Harry over time."

As Albus seemed to pause in a moment of reflection, Lucius was rapidly filing away the gold-mine of information that was being provided to him. He wasn't sure what made the Old Fool decide to confide in him, but he would certainly make sure it would be to his advantage. Perhaps he could get Dumbledore arrested and then visit the Boy-Who-Lived. As a malicious glee filled his heart, he suddenly noticed the mental probe in his mind again and realized he had relaxed his shields. Throwing his shields back up, he focused on Albus.

A small sad smile graced Dumbledore's lips before he continued speaking.

"I had of course mean to visit Harry once a month, to make sure all was well. I had monitors on the wards of course, but they rarely tell one the full story. However, I always seemed to have a reason to push back the visits. I like to think it was because I was being stupidly optimistic, but I suspect that deep down I knew I wouldn't like what I saw and wanted to avoid seeing that I had caused harm. I will have to come to terms with that part of myself. Nonetheless, I forced myself to visit for the first time today, and I did not like what I saw."

"For Harry's sake of privacy, I will not share the details of what I observed. What I will share is that in any other case I would have immediately removed the child from that environment and brought the full force of law upon his so-called family. But, it was not some other case, it was Harry Potter. I can't even threaten his family, because they would likely remove him from the house just out of spite, which would destroy the protections upon Harry. I find myself in an impossible position, Lucius. If he stays with his family, I am certain he has ten dark and difficult years to look forward to. If I take him away, you or your compatriots will ensure he does not survive to see Hogwarts. I can't even use our laws to stop you, because you have so thoroughly bribed the right people. What is the right answer?"

Despite trying to maintain focus on his barriers, Lucius couldn't help but revel in a feeling of smug satisfaction. If the Muggle Loving Fool keeps his precious Potter child alive, the half-blood would still suffer. Within seconds of his reveling beginning, he once again felt the apparently constant probes again. Wearily, he brought his shields back up and focused on the old man again. How did he keep those probes going without any apparent effort?

Dumbledore, staring intently at Lucius, merely raised an eyebrow at Lucius and continued speaking.

"I have to say, I have found you to be an incredibly good listener. It has been so long since I have had a chance to just talk to someone without them trying to reassure me that I am being overly harsh with myself, or believing I am being modest. Perhaps you might be willing to allow me to go on a bit of a tangent?"

"You see, there is a part of my character that I am not proud of. I rarely am willing to even admit this to myself, and certainly have not talked to anyone about it before. I have a problem with wielding power. I find it incredibly addictive and find it nearly impossible to know my limits once I allow myself to exercise a certain power. It's part of the reason why I have focused on building up such an immense body of magical knowledge, I find academic study to be a good way to feed my addiction."

"In my youth, I nearly let that addiction lead me down the path to becoming a Dark Lord in my own right. If it wasn't for the tragic loss of my sister before I had traveled too far down the path, there is a decent chance that you would either be my servant, or you would be dead. Thankfully I was pulled off that path and realized how destructive my addiction was."

"That is why my youth is full of stories of my studies into academic fields. I was running away from any power over others. Eventually though, Headmaster Dippet pleaded with me to take on the role of Transfiguration Professor at Hogwarts. I convinced myself that I would only have a small amount of power over the students and limit myself to only use the power for the purposes of education. Even then, I still reveled in the power of assigning punishments and being able to mold the ethics of the students. Once I accepted that it was fine for me to have power over the students, I didn't even blink as I received higher positions in the school."

"It evolved along similar lines for my other positions that were forced upon me. I didn't ask for them, but once I had them, my addiction took control. Every day I must consciously force myself to not go overboard, and even then, I know I am likely going overboard without realizing it. I simply pray that I am doing good with my use of power."

"Incidentally, that is why I refused to use lethal force during the war. To take a life, or order someone to take a life, is perhaps the ultimate power. If I allowed myself to have the power to take the life of your master or any of his servants, I feared that I wouldn't be able to stop myself until every one of you had been moved onto your next great adventures."

"I suspect that Tom, Voldemort's given name, had deduced my addiction and knew why I was holding myself back. If I am right, that is likely why he seemed to fear me. He didn't fear me, he feared what I was preventing myself from being. After all, I regularly dueled him a draw and was never using lethal force, so I don't think he was keen to find out how he would fare against a version of me without my self-limiters."

As Dumbledore paused to seemingly collect his thoughts, Lucius found himself contemplating this revelation with a touch of fear running down his spine. Why was Dumbledore revealing all of this to a known enemy? The old man had certainly been polite this entire time, and yet Lucius was still frozen, and the mental probes were still constantly attacking. Speaking of which, he once again felt the probe and wearily raised his shields.

Dumbledore simply gave a sympathetic smile to Lucius and continued.

"I suppose I have digressed for long enough. As I previously mentioned, I had found myself in a terrible situation."

"If I left Harry with his family, he would be safe from you and your compatriots, but he would suffer at the hands of his family. If I approached his family, then they would likely kick him out of the house and nullify the protections."

"If I took him from his family, he would be safe from his family, but he would likely die at the hands of you and your compatriots. I couldn't just remove you legally, because you are all too well connected and wealthy."

"As I said in the beginning, I made a discovery and had a revelation this evening. The discovery was the dilemma I now face. Now that you understand the background, here comes my revelation. The revelation came in three parts. First, Harry is effectively being punished for the crimes of you and your compatriots. Second, either choice I make damns me. Third, if I am going to be damned, I much prefer being damned while punishing the guilty rather than the innocent."

"I have chosen to create a third option. You see, I can't do anything about Harry's family, but without your master's protection I can certainly do something about nullifying the threat you pose. Without you and your compatriots, Harry will be safe to leave his family and moved to a decent family with good wards. All I must do is allow myself the power to kill Tom and his followers and, for Harry's sake, I am now willing to do just that."

Lucius began to panic, and desperately fight against the magic holding him paralyzed. He didn't even care about the mental probe anymore.

Dumbledore sighed.

"Well, it's getting late and I must be off to bed soon. I want to thank you for allowing your emotions to overcome your barriers multiple times tonight, as that greatly helped me to map out your mindscape. Now, I am sorry to say that I will shortly rip through your mind to grab all you know about your master, his minions, and his plots. I assure you that resisting will make that painful experience into something truly excruciating beyond any torture curse you have experienced. I assure you that any resistance you give will not even slow me down and will only cause you pain, so I recommend not resisting. If it's any comfort, once I am done getting what I need, I will ensure your death is painless and appears to be of natural causes."

Lucius watched in horror as Dumbledore slowly stood up and pulled out his wand. It seemed like it took forever for the wand to swing up and point directly between his eyes. He really wished he could close his eyes for this moment.

"Oh, and Lucius, thanks for listening. It really helped me to get all of that off my chest. Goodbye Lucius. Legilimens!"

Lucius knew pain, but at least it wasn't excruciating.


End file.
